The Speed of Dark

In the near future, disease will be a condition of the past. Most genetic defects will be removed at birth; the remaining during infancy. Unfortunately, there will be a generation left behind. For members of that missed generation, small advances will be made. Through various programs, they will be taught to get along in the world despite their differences. They will be made active and contributing members of society. But they will never be normal.

Oath of Fealty

Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter follows her dream of becoming a hero out of legend by running away to join the army. Military life and warfare aren't anything like she imagined - yet she holds to both her duty and her dreams. Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold tell of her rise to become the paladin who saves a kingdom. In this new trilogy, Paks's former comrades in Duke Phelan's Company assume new roles and the story turns to follow their adventures.

At the Sign of Triumph: Safehold, Book 9

The Church of God Awaiting's triumph over Charis was inevitable. Despite its prosperity, the Charis was a single, small island realm. It boasted less than two percent of the total population of Safehold. How could it possibly resist total destruction? The Church had every reason to be confident of a swift, crushing victory, an object lesson to other rebels.

Earth Alone: Earthrise, Book 1

They came from deep space. They came to destroy us. Fifty years ago bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness. But now we rise from the ashes. Now we fight back. Marco Emery was born into the war. After his mother is killed, he joins the Human Defense Force, Earth's ragtag army. Emery must survive basic training, become a soldier, and finally face the aliens in battle. Against the alien onslaught, Earth stands alone. But we will fight. We will rise. We will win.

Sassinak: The Planet Pirates, Book 1

Sassinak was 12 when the raiders came. That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.

Closer to the Chest: The Herald Spy, Book Three

Herald Mags, the King of Valdemar's Herald-Spy, has been developing a clandestine network of young informants who operate not only on the streets of the capital city of Haven but also in the Great Halls and kitchens of the wealthy and highborn. In his own established alternate personas, Mags observes the Court and the alleys alike, quietly gathering information to keep Haven and the Kingdom safe.

Honor's Flight: Fallen Empire, Book 2

After spending four years fighting for the Alliance, fighter pilot Alisa Marchenko wants only one thing: to reunite with her young daughter. But this involves a journey to her former home world, which has become the last imperial stronghold. Since the imperials have a lot of reasons to loathe members of the Alliance right now, just getting down to the planet will be a challenge, and it doesn't help that her passengers are stirring up trouble of their own.

Dark Deeds: Class 5 Series, Book 2

Fiona Russell has been snatched from Earth, imprisoned, and used as slave labor, but nothing about her abduction makes sense. When she's rescued by the Grih, she realizes there's a much bigger game in play than she ever could have imagined, and she's right in the middle of it.

Way Station

In this Hugo Award-winning classic, Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he had done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

The Curse of Chalion

Amidst the decaying splendor and poisonous intrigue of Chalion's ancient capital, Cazaril is forced to confront not only powerful enemies but also the malignant curse that clings to the royal household, trapping him, flesh and soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death for as long as he dares walk the five-fold pathway of the gods.

Dragonflight: Dragonriders of Pern

On the beautiful planet Pern, colonized for centuries, Land Holders and Craftsmen have traditionally tithed food and supplies to the dragonweyrs to which they are bound. In times past, the mighty telepathic dragons and their riders were the only protection from the dreaded, life-threatening Thread. Now those times may be returning....

Shadow of Victory

Sometimes things don't work out exactly as planned. The Mesan Alignment has a plan - one it's been working on for centuries. A plan to remake the galaxy and genetically improve the human race - its way. Until recently things have gone pretty much as scheduled, but then the Alignment hit a minor bump in the road called the Star Empire of Manticore. So the Alignment engineered a war between the Solarian League, the biggest and most formidable interstellar power in human history.

Valor's Choice

In the distant future, humans and several other races have been granted membership in the Confederation - at a price. They must act as soldier/protectors of the far more civilized races who have long since turned away from war.

Star Nomad: Fallen Empire, Book 1

The Alliance has toppled the tyrannical empire. It should be a time for celebration, but not for fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko. After barely surviving a crash in the final battle for freedom, she's stranded on a dustball of a planet, billions of miles from her young daughter. She has no money or resources, and there are no transports heading to Perun, her former home and the last imperial stronghold. But she has a plan.

The Sword of the South

Know thyself. Its always good to know who you are, but sometimes that's a little difficult. Kenhodan has no last name because he has no past...or not one he remembers, anyway. What he does have are a lot of scars and a lot of skills - some exhilarating and some terrifying - and a purpose. Now, if he only knew where he'd gotten them and what their purpose was....

Into the Dark: Alexis Carew, Book 1

At 15, Alexis Carew has to face an age old problem - she's a girl, and only a boy can inherit the family's vast holdings. Her options are few. She must marry and watch a stranger run the lands, or become a penniless tenant and see the lands she so dearly loves sold off. Yet there may be another option, one that involves becoming a midshipman on a shorthanded spaceship with no other females.

A Call to Duty: Book I of Manticore Ascendant

Growing up, Travis Uriah Long yearned for order and discipline in his life...he two things his neglectful mother couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. So when Travis enlisted in the Royal Manticoran Navy, he thought he’d finally found the structure he’d always wanted so desperately. But life in the RMN isn’t exactly what he expected. Boot camp is rough and frustrating; his first ship assignment lax and disorderly; and with the Star Kingdom of Manticore still recovering from a devastating plague, the Navy is possibly on the edge of budgetary extinction.

A Study in Sable: Elemental Masters, Book 11

Psychic Nan Killian and Medium Sarah Lyon-White - along with their clever birds: the raven, Neville; and the parrot, Grey - have been agents of Lord Alderscroft, the Elemental Fire Master known as the Wizard of London, since leaving school. Now Lord Alderscroft assigns them another commission: to work with the famous man living at 221 Baker Street - but not the one in flat B. They are to assist the man living in flat C. Dr. John Watson and his wife, Mary, themselves Elemental Masters of Water and Air, take the occult cases John's more famous friend disdains.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.

Star Shroud: Ascension, Book 1

Zack Quick has been on the move for 10 years, hacking big corporations and exposing their secrets. Then he stumbles upon one of the biggest discoveries that will forever change the world - and possibly get him killed. Kaylan Farrow is the pilot for Earth's most advanced spaceship, whose maiden voyage is supposed to take her crew to Titan, but newly released images from a deep space probe threaten to cancel the mission.

Still Falling (Solstice 31 Saga: Book 1)

Barcus is a working stiff looking for a good paycheck. When the Ventura and its crew enter orbit for a scheduled planet survey, the ship activates an automated defense system protecting the planet. Although the Ventura is destroyed in the attack, Barcus alone survives the harrowing fall to the remote planet surface. He struggles to remain alive and sane, and to discover why everyone he knew and loved on the Ventura was deliberately murdered.

The Pride of Chanur: Chanur, Book 1

No one at Meetpoint Station had ever seen a creature like the Outsider. Naked-hided, blunt toothed and blunt-fingered, Tully was the sole surviving member of his company -- a communicative, spacefaring species hitherto unknown -- and he was a prisoner of his discoverer/captors the sadistic, treacherous kif, until his escape onto the hani ship The Pride of Chanur.

Publisher's Summary

For forty years, Colony 3245.12 has been Ofelia’s home. On this planet far away in space and time from the world of her youth, she has lived and loved, weathered the death of her husband, raised her one surviving child, lovingly tended her garden, and grown placidly old. And it is here that she fully expects to finish out her days - until the shifting corporate fortunes of the Sims Bancorp Company dictates that Colony 3245.12 is to be disbanded, its residents shipped off, deep in cryo-sleep, to somewhere new and strange and not of their choosing. But while her fellow colonists grudgingly anticipate a difficult readjustment on some distant world, Ofelia savors the promise of a golden opportunity. Not starting over in the hurly-burly of a new community...but closing out her life in blissful solitude, in the place she has no intention of leaving. A population of one.

With everything she needs to sustain her, and her independent spirit to buoy her, Ofelia actually does start life over - for the first time on her own terms: free of the demands, the judgments, and the petty tyrannies of others. But when a reconnaissance ship returns to her idyllic domain, and its crew is mysteriously slaughtered, Ofelia realizes she is not the sole inhabitant of her paradise after all. And, when the inevitable time of first contact finally arrives, she will find her life changed yet again - in ways she could never have imagined....

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat and try to be just like Ofelia! Remnant Population isn't a perfect book, but it sure has a wonderful protagonist and one unlike any I have previously come across in Sci-Fi. Ofelia has traveled the stars in her lifetime but doesn't begin her real personal journey until the age of 70, and Remnant Population is the story of that amazing personal evolution. Most sci-fi lovers will enjoy the second 1/2 of this novel, but you should be aware that this is a much more character driven novel than most science fiction, although plot and setting play a much larger role in the second half of the book. However, the first half of the book may feel like a bit of a slog for someone looking for traditional sci-fi - there is almost no action. It takes the author a full 2 hours to set up the story, another hour before any suspense is introduced, and another 2 hours after that before the real action begins. After a very gradual buildup, the entire second half of the book is chock-full of both characters and drama that are totally engaging. There is a reason for Moon's slow movement into the real meat of the story - without the introductory setup, you can't fully appreciate how and why Ofelia changes the way she does and why she is oddly the right person in the right place at the right time to take on a very hard and weird job. I can appreciate Moon's craftsmanship, but I still felt a bit like a desert nomad who finally reaches an amazing oasis when I came to the second half of the book. In the final analysis, I'd recommend Remnant Population to anyone who has a little patience and loves good sci-fi with great characters, but just go in prepared for a very slow start. Ofelia is a gem of a character - she really is worth the wait to get to know her.

Vanessa Hart's narration is perfect. She has a nice voice, with a nice rhythm. She sets a fairly brisk pace which is very good for the slower section of the book. She handles the "alien" language really well and, without actually sounding old, Hart sounds worldly-wise just like I think Ofelia would sound.

I love this story, ever since I first read it and was thrilled to find it here on Audible. The narrator's voice has a wonderful 'aged' timbre and fits the character. It may be Science Fiction but has the universal themes of being in charge of one's own destiny and how the choices one makes to interact with 'new people' has long lasting repercussions. Elderly heroines are rare and this one is well worth remembering.

I love the way the author has in telling this story. After listening to the whole thing I want to turn around and listen to it again. I already miss the characters and can see how this planet will develop into something wonderful.

What made the experience of listening to Remnant Population the most enjoyable?

Unusual story, endearing characters that I just wanted to be with. As soon as I finished it, I played it again and was equally as charmed and delighted by the second hearing as the first.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The babies, I wanted to cuddle them too. Actually I loved all the characters even the son and daughter-in-law and especially the 70 year old lady who made me look at my grandma in a very different way.

What does Vanessa Hart bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She was just great. Trying to pronounce those alien words when you are reading them can be frustrating but hearing them doesn't interupt the story flow and Ms Hart does a great job of that. Her voice is soft and a little smokey and not overly dramatic. For this story she was a great pleasure to listen to.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Really extreme for me. Listened twice in a row, the first time non stop and I'm writing this review without being asked to by Audible :) Never done that before.

Any additional comments?

Ms Elizabeth Moon has written a wonderful book, wish I had discovered it before. Give yourself a great treat and listen to this lovely story that will stay with you for a long time.

This is a book about an elderly woman who chooses to stay on a planet when all the other colonists leave, then finds that she is living on a planet that is inhabited by an intelligent native species. Everything is hunky dory until years later, when colonists come back and there is a conflict between the new colonists and the natives.

I liked parts of this story, particularly how the old woman survives on her own and meets the natives for the first time. I also liked how the story dealt with the different level of technologies between both sides and the reasons for it.

What I didn't like was how stupid and unreasonable both parties were. At one point, the humans accidentally kill a bunch of natives. It's clearly an accident and the natives understand it's an accident, but for some reason they are hell-bent on taking revenge.

The humans don't fare much better, every human besides the main character is either comically stupid or arrogant. Towards the end of the book, there is one particular character who makes a whole series of irrational decisions, which ultimately leads to his demise. I just didn't find him to be believable at all, along with most of the other humans.

I've read many sci-fi stories about first contact, and this book is solidly on the weaker side of the genre.

Although, I don't prefer Moon's fantasy in general, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The blend of sci-fi, survivor story and character study was very engaging. I enjoyed becoming attached to the characters, interested in their perspectives and invested in their destinies. Delightful.